Matthew DesOrmeaux

Recent Posts From Matthew DesOrmeaux

When presidential nominee Gary Johnson begged Libertarian delegates to choose his preferred running mate as the party’s vice president, his argument hinged on fundraising and media attention. Mitt Romney added a third plank to that argument on Friday - endorsements.

In an interview with CNN, the 2012 Republican nominee said that as an opponent of both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, he’s now open to supporting Gary Johnson for president in November, and Bill Weld is the reason.

“If Bill Weld were at the top of the ticket, it would be very easy for me to vote for Bill Weld for president,” Romney said. “So I’ll get to know Gary Johnson better and see if he’s someone who I could end up voting for.”

Although they were all but over two weeks ago, the Republican and Democratic presidential primaries officially ended on Tuesday when the final states cast their votes. Hillary Clinton’s victory was cheered from sea to shining sea as a historic first. It was only a first if you limit the criteria and historical record to a very specific window. That’s the problem with our party system in the first place.

While she is the first female presidential nominee from the Democratic or Republican parties, those aren’t the only parties in our system. They’re not even the only parties who have won the presidency.

Jill Stein was the Green Party presidential nominee in 2012 and likely will be this year too. Last time, with two largely popular major party candidates, she received 469,501 votes nationwide but no electoral votes. Not even Stein was the first female nominee, though.

In 1872, feminist activist Victoria Woodhull was the nominee for president from the Equal Rights Party. Her vice presidential nominee was famed abolitionist Frederick Douglass, though he never acknowledged the party’s choice of him. Woodhull received a negligible number of votes, if any. She was kept from voting even for herself after being arrested a few days before the election.

In July 2015, David Sirota of the IB Times submitted a FOIA request for Hillary Clinton’s emails from the State Dept about the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal. As the trade deal is a public policy and Hillary a public official partly responsible for arranging it, State agreed. He received a response that those emails would be ready for him in April 2016.

April came and went, of course, without the emails being released. One week ago, Charlotte Duckett at State followed up, saying the relevant emails had been located and are now being “prepared for review” and would be ready for release by…wait for it…November 31, 2016. Three weeks after the election.

In case you’re not familiar with the Gregorian calendar, November 31st does not exist. There are only 30 days in November.

After accepting the Libertarian nomination for president last Sunday, Gary Johnson spent more than half of his speech giving an impassioned plea to convention delegates on behalf of his at vice presidential preference, Bill Weld.

In 5 years I’ve never seen @GovGaryJohnson speak as passionately as he has today in support of Bill Weld. #LNC16

If nothing else (and there’s a lot else), 2016 has been a story of the struggle between sanity and any number of other alternatives.

Republicans chose…well, you know. With the biggest, deepest bench of fresh-faced, experienced, diverse candidates in a generation, maybe ever, Republicans instead have chosen…again, you know. Not sanity, that’s for sure.

Democrats, forced to choose between a fire-breathing democratic socialist and a very experienced but very under-investigation stick of margarine. Everyone tells you it’s better than the alternative, but it’ll probably end up the opposite. Ironically, as the corruptocrat has neared her inevitable nomination, it’s the socialist who’s become more electable.

Libertarians faced a similar choice this past weekend at their national convention. Gary Johnson was the frontrunner for president, and Bill Weld his choice for vice president, both experienced former Republican governors. Ironically it was exactly their extensive experience that became a liability at the convention.

More radical delegates vocally opposed Johnson and Weld in favor of ideological pure and consequently less well-known candidates. One of those candidates, Darryl Perry, who actually favors the dissolution of the United States, argued that increased media exposure and election funding for the Libertarian Party would kill it.

As the everlasting presidential primaries give way to the possibly even more grueling general election, polls take on a new irrelevance, and coincidentally a new furious pace. Now that pollsters don’t have to ask about two different races with a dozen different candidates in any number of primary states, they can ask about the all-but-certain general election contest between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump more often.

In the latest of these polls, Morning Consult finds Clinton leading Trump by just 2 points, 42 to 40.

The consensus just a month ago was that Hillary would soundly defeat Trump in November; Trump’s alienating of everyone from women to disabled people was unsustainable. But polls already show the race closing to a statistical tie, just in the last week.

It’s going to be a long five months.

As I’ve implored, third party candidates should also be included in these general election polls. There are going to be more than two options on everyone’s ballot in November, so it does little good to make people choose between only two options in polls designed to show the state of that election.

Fortunately, the Morning Consult poll does just that and includes likely Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson along with Trump and Clinton. With all three options, they still find a Clinton lead, but by 3 points instead of 2.

It seems like it took five gruelling, facepalm-inducing years, but it was blink-and-miss-it news that the major party presidential primaries came to an all-but-official close this week. The result that we all predicted and dreaded six months ago: Trump vs Clinton vs …?

Although Bernie Sanders has not yet ended or suspended his campaign, the Democratic primary came to an arrangement this week that serves the same purpose. Hillary is less than 100 delegates away from clinching the nomination, and she seems content to coasting to victory.

That victory will officially take place with California, New Jersey, and the final round of state primaries next month. In the meantime, the Clinton campaign has shifted ad spending from the primary battle to the general election, now focusing on Donald Trump’s lifelong parade of horribles.

Let’s be honest. When most people think of Libertarian candidates, they picture nutjobs. Your local conspiracy theorist ranting against various American institutions doesn’t often rally voters, which is why there are so few elected Libertarians across the country, despite the party’s 45-year lifespan.

2016 might finally change all that. Libertarians are going from metaphorical lone gunmen to experienced leaders in very short order thanks to the likely presidential and vice presidential nominees.

Gary Johnson, the party’s frontronner and previous nominee, has announced his preference for his running mate, Bill Weld. Like Johnson himself, Weld is a former Republican governor of a deep blue state, Massachusetts. The two also share a proven fiscal conservative record despite governing in such hostile territory.

If Johnson and Weld do win their respective nominations at the Libertarian National Convention in just over a week, the party will be able to claim the most experienced ticket of any party in decades.

After a crushing defeat in a two-man contest that everyone had begged for all year, Ted Cruz suspended his campaign in Indiana, effectively coronating Donald Trump the Republican nominee for president.

“We left it all on the field in Indiana. We gave it everything we’ve got but the voters chose another path,” Cruz said. “So with a heavy heart but with boundless optimism for the long-term future of our nation, we are suspending our campaign.”

Though Trump has maintained 50-60% support in most recent primary votes, he is still woefully unpopular among a significant minority of Republicans, many of whom vow to not support him in the general election.

That pledge will now come front and center as the only viable alternative in the primary drops out. #NeverTrump Republicans have a decision to make. Fortunately, they have options.

We will have a new president this time next year, one way or another. But on the current trajectory, he or she will take office hated by most of the country and with no mandate to impose much of a platform. What a waste that would be.

Thanks largely to a successful social media campaign and a smash hit musical, Alexander Hamilton will remain on the $10 bill for the forseeable future. Instead of a woman replacing him, Harriet Tubman will replace President Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill. This is good news for several reasons, and beautifully poetic justice for several more.

1. The $20 is used much more than the $10.

As of 2015, there were 8.6 billion $20 bills in circulation, but only 1.9 billion $10 bills. Having a woman, especially one as historically important as Harriet Tubman, on the $20 will mean more than 4 times as much visibility.

2. "Who lives, who dies, who tells your story?"

As the insanely successful Broadway musical has reminded America, Alexander Hamilton was one of its most important and praiseworthy founding fathers. A penniless immigrant from the Caribbean, Hamilton fought in the Revolution and rose with sheer intellect and will power to be the first Secretary of the Treasury. He's basically single-handedly responsible for ensuring the financial solvency of the republic for its first generation. If anyone should be on American currency for the duration of the republic (or at least its fiat currency system), it's Alexander Hamilton.